story identification - Chimps save the life of a crewmate

Read this novella a while ago. I think it was on Asimov magazine. It was about a trial where the sole survivor of a spaceship was trying to end a program where chimps were traveling with humans and they had cut the arms and legs of the crewman in order to save his life. The chimps spoke using sign language. It has an epic ending where he realizes that they sacrifice themselves in order to save him. Anybody know the name and/or author?

Answer

The name of the story is "Humanity Test" by Charles Sheffield and appears in "Georgia on my Mind and Other Places". Very moving story, indeed. The cutting off of the limbs was an attempt to reduce the weight of the people in order to save their lives as the lifeboat had a minimal capacity. The story was Sheffield's take on the classic tale "The Cold Equations". The chimps had their intellects artificially augmented and that was the program that was in jeopardy after "Skip" seemingly went crazy here.

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/titlecovers.cgi?48291

Comments

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